My office directly faces the beginning of runway 17C at DFW — I’m serious, I’m looking at it right now… well, I’m trying to, through the rain, anyway. It’s kind of eerie — the first time I have seen it dark outsied without the approach lights on. It looks like DFW turned out all of the lights on the field — at least from my vantage point.

Normally, every couple of minutes, you can go outside and look up and just about see the valve stems on the landing gear of the planes making their approach to 17C.

On the other side, it seems that my employer didn’t see fit to notify us that there were funnel clouds in the area.

I hate DFW airport. If there is a drop of water falling anywhere in the state of texas that place shuts down.

Apparently if there is lightning anywhere within a 50mile radius they shut down all of the ground crew. I’ve been told this policy is actually in the union contract. It was apparently added after someone got struck and killed on the tarmac.

It is very odd though. Whenever I fly in and out of St. Louis there can be lightning all around and it doesn’t impact their organization.

@FLConsumer: Waterspouts are a completely different creature…they can form from non-tornadic clouds. Tornadoes are almost always much stronger, and the thunderstorms that form them are a bit more, shall I say, menacing than the average big puffy cumulus cloud in the Keys with a spout dangling from it. Apples to oranges, IMO (no, I don’t have a meteorology degree, but I’m both a commercial pilot and a storm chaser, and I’ve seen both).

I think I read a while back about a guy who tried to fly through a waterspout (or at least tow an instrument package through them) with a 182 (or similar) years ago. That takes cajones of steel.

@ywgflyer: Huge difference between a tornado and funnel cloud ‘though. Most funnels are about as piss-weak as the garden-variety FL Keys waterspout.

I won’t say that I’m 100% comfortable flying with waterspouts in the vicinity, and I certainly fly in the opposite direction that they’re moving. I can’t imagine trying to fly a small plane into one. Even flying a fighter plane into one wouldn’t be fun.